Razer Blade Pro 17 2021 RTX 3000

Razer blade pro 17 Rtx 3080 100 watt reviewed by a user.

Timespy Overall 10,5K graphics 10,7K CPU 9,9K
Firestrike Overall 22,3K graphics 27,5K CPU 21,4K.
He has on other videos gaming performance on 4K 120Hz setting.

 

Holy jet engine...

 

Welcome to the thin light world laptops He said I think he had as well the previous Blade model so he is hypnotized by the look and forget about the sound, yes Razer looks damn sexy so like girls you’ll forget something bad when you enjoy them i can understand that
However I think he pull out all power its power, not mentioned cpu temperature maybe quite on high areas, if you undervolte and limit it like to not all max boost if you could it’ll be better I think mine even smaller form factor runs similar titles isn’t as loud as that...or maybe I was also hypnotized

 

My problem also is that benchmark GPU/CPU temps are not realistic as they are not sustained loads. Gaming for an hour on something ridiculously hard on the system like FFXV would be a better indication of how ampere + 10th gen intel perform in the razer blade. I have a hard time believing "there is definitely more thermal headroom for the GPU" yeah right, the same thing was said about the 2080SMQ and yet it runs incredibly hot (reviewers said low 70s, my experience has been high 70s - low 80s), as expected in such a compact form factor.

 

When will Razer update the displays of Razer Blade 15 and 17 to 16:10, like Razer Book 13?

 

Ampere cards actually cooler in my experience on desktop cards on Egpu setting, Zotac 1080ti was hitting 80ish, xc2080on high 70ish, 2080ti Asus turbo easily hitting 80ish, with current 3070 Zotac twin edge which’s known for not having kind Evga good cooling, I’ve trouble hitting 70ish with maxed OC on long session gaming, Valhalla, Fenyx rising main story I ended with that setting on 1440p and 4K with at least maybe 2 hours gaming session a day. The hot part maybe CPU for having more cores higher frequency on 14nm chips, though I use icelake which’s ice cold max 70ish Though it’s 25 watt CPU.

Hmm Razer Blade is gaming notebook, I think 16:9 still better aspect on this. Legion is doing something else I think with their 16pro.

 

If they released a Razer Book 16/17 without a dGPU and a 6-core CPU i'd probably jump on it immediately.

 

Jeez RTX 3080 Max-qs are pathetic. Might as well go for the RTX 3070M configs that come with 115w+15w.

 

Okay, how fast they are? Can run Hitman 4K Ultra 75+ FPS and Doom eternal 4K Ultra 100+ FPS? I think he said almost maxed out and the later title according Youtube 3070 desktop and my eGPU 3070 barely handle 100 FPS. On Another his video 4K RDR2 easily handle 60fps plus on town, though there’s some mix Ultra to medium setting, to get that (if I’m lucky) I’ve to lower to 1440p but forget 50fps in town. Don’t judge from 3DMark my Timespy graphics score beat it as well.

 

Hey folks,

Contrary to some of your comments I did several hours of testing before commenting on the thermal headroom (I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear!). I've been in discussions with Razer about tgp and they have said they are looking into it.

Any questions let me know!

Kind regards

Rob

 

What kind of thermals you getting?

 

Really impressed so far. Cpu run in the mid to high 70s on a sustained gaming session. Gpu stays down at around 65. Coming from the 8th gen 15 model, which was a hot little cookie (but manageable in my opinion) I'm surprised how good the thermals are on the 17.

 

Gpu tdp is disappointing though. Razer should have used a 115w+15w design like Asus's zephyrus duo.

 

Yeah I've spoken to Razer about my findings on TDP and they have assured me they are reviewing the situation.

I would be careful with the zephyrus duo because having read notebookcheck's review, it would seem that of the games I can test in comparison, a number of them achieve higher framerates on my device. Whilst the tdp is lower, the gpu is well cooled and overclocked (+150, +400) and benefits from a mux switch. The performance difference between the devices isn't as big as you'd think and may surprise you in some cases. I might make a comparison if I get time.

 

When both devices are overclocked and optimised well the higher tdp one will be faster for sure. A mux switch helps with high framerate games more than heavy AAA games.

Btw, on razer you can overclock the ram as well which will significantly boost framerates on games like cyberpunk 2077. Heck, I'm getting higher framerates than most laptops with a 150w 3080 simply because they are ram speed bottlenecked.

 

The MUX has helped on all games I've tested so far, not just competitive. Rdr2 and cyberpunk at 4k both benefit from a 12% boost. You'd have to push a lot more wattage to unlock 12% performance.

So are are you saying that the Asus is poorly optimised? Or could there be an issue with AMD cpus having less PCIE lanes?

That's an interesting point about overclocking RAM - I'll have a look at it. Every little helps right?

 

I would pin it on the lack of a MUX with a performance loss of nearly 17 percent according to this post when using the internal display versus an external monitor.

 

Impossible until they get rid of 230 watt AC adapter, it’s reported already hot. I think even ryzen 7 ROG duo model which’s 35 watt cpu they use 240 watt and for ryzen 9 should be higher.

 

Zephyrus duo has a 300w adapter, hence why it can be flashed to 150w vbios and handles it like a champ.

Laptops from last gen could handle 115w gpus and charging at the same time with 230w adapters btw. 115+15w with slower or no charging would work.

 

Yeah extra 70 watt of course it can handle it. 2080maxq blade pro could spike to 140 watt and pulled 100 watt plus, but again their ac adapter are pointed by notebookcheck hot. Probably this’s why we see 100 watt limitation. Sure bigger form factor power adapter can handle heat better but Razer use same form factor 230 across the lines. I can put the 230 watt ac adapter on my feet while gaming since it pulls only 90 watt but not on blade pro ac adapter that pulled 100 watt plus, i was being asked by 2080 pro user to check if mine was hot too.

 

Yeah Razer's adapters have always run significantly hotter than ones from other brands due to them being smaller. Wonder why laptop makers are so slow to move to GaN chargers.

 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer...w-The-GeForce-RTX-30-Difference.519563.0.html

Now heavier than ever, last gen's blade pro 17 already tipped the scales at 2.7kg, this gen clocks in at almost 3kgs making it as heavy or heavier than thick medium sized gaming laptops like the GE76 (2.9kg vs 2.96kg) while running much hotter due to its thin a̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ yet heavy design. What the heck razer

 

Do you ever have blade laptops? It’s all aluminum cnc bulletproof unibody different class with windows plastic mix or magnesium alloy cassis. Once you get used to it other might feel like toys not so good. That’s one of my current issue upgrading my unit to other brands 3000 series, this’s maybe only me being used to almost a decade MacBook.

 

If I'm lugging around 3kgs I'd want that laptop to actually perform like a 3kg class laptop. Form over function is meaningless.

It gets even more egregious when you consider the fact that the GE76 has a 150w+ 3080M and runs far faster (+30-40%) and cooler than the blade Pro 17 at just 55C

Better build quality is good but not if it sacrifices the essence of the laptop which is to be a thin and light gaming machine. And god forbid you encroach into a higher tier of laptops which is exactly what the blade Pro 17 has done.

 

There was a time where I thought this same way, back when the original Razer Blade came out and it was boxing against the likes of the glorious M18x. bga cpu and gpu vs full socket extreme edition chip and mxm GPUs. The choice was easy then.

Fast forward 10 years into the future, and machines like the M18x no longer exist. Seeing as raw performance is no longer a thing in the laptop space, I now shoot for the next best thing: build quality. The Razer Blade build quality is second to none in the PC world.

 

That's not the point though, the M18x was far heavier than the og blade and in a different weight class altogether, the blade was for those who were ok with sacrificing performance for something lighter. Now with the blade pro you're sacrificing performance for nothing. Build quality is a moot argument because once its good enough it no longer becomes a factor.

Simply put, the Blade Pro is way too heavy. The engineering team blew their weight budget this time around.

What you want are laptops like the 2019 blade 15. Same weight class as other thin and lights, similar cooling, same or better performance than competing laptops like the gs65 but with better build quality at the cost of paying Razer's price premium.

You don't want to pay a price premium and get spit on the face.

 

GE76 costs more expensive extra €300 than maxed out blade pro here, and still bottleneck by FHD screen in 2021 really? not mentioned that from the look I believe no one brings that like to work or something for officiall usages. Not mentioned lack of TB3 that for some are important, blade 3000 series has also hdmi 2.1 if that’s the matter which I don’t see in other laptops yet, correctly if I’m not wrong . Firestrike isn’t thing to put a value on laptops.
To be honest look at thin and laptops nowadays it all move to blade kind look form factor, asus g/m 15, MSI gs66, HP Omen etc, because a lot poeple also need stealth mature non gamerish look. Personally I’d rather buy mini desktop than buy GE76, since for me anything bigger than 15 inch and 2,5Kg plus are a desktop.

 

GE76 was just an example, you can go with the scar 15 which fits your bill nicely (though the lack of mux hurts performance). Honestly there is no best RTX 3000 laptop in the market yet, hopefully hp or Lenovo bring something good to the market.

There's nothing wrong with the blade form factor, as long as it cools well and performance is there then I'm all for it.

Razer just really needs to get their flagship rb17 pro together. As it stands it's too heavy and too slow for its weight, not to mention commands a price premium.

 

I think for now Alieware m17 r4 has the best 3000 performance, best looks to me maybe if there’s mercury blade with black glossy display like base 15 2020 Oled. If it exist in EU I’ll forget about the 3000 series and get that one instead, don’t really care bad battery life, 2070 maxq, first style skill/ performance later .

 

GPU scores seem low actually. From what I've been able to read and see from benchmarks unless you get the 150w 3080 you're better off skipping it as the 3070 with the same wattage is basically neck and neck with 3080. Still I think this is modest bump over last gen 2080s. Not bad overall I say.

 

From the website, the GE76 isn't a bad looking device, and I could probably take that into a meeting with me without worrying too much about it. And I say this as someone who currently carries a Blade Pro 17 as my work / personal laptop. An awful lot of MSI's prior laptops (especially those with the red & gold accents) I would not have taken into any meetings with me. But most of the industry seems to be moving towards more stealthy laptops, even in the gaming arena.

I switched from the Blade 15 Advanced to the Blade Pro 17 mostly due to the supposedly better cooling (and the upgrade from 2070 MQ to 2080 MQ, as they had them in-stock in the local Microsoft store). And I still love Razer laptops, but I'm starting to question their reliability (just had to replace the battery in my 12 month old Blade Pro 17), and despite the extra cooling of the Pro 17 vs the Blade 15, the 17 still runs hot. And I haven't found Razer's post-sales support to be that great.

Honestly the only high-end gaming laptops I would consider would be Alienware or Razer. MSI, Asus and Gigabyte all have some decent units, but I'm even more concerned about post-sales support from any of them than Razer or Dell. I still really want a 2021 Blade 15 Advanced with the QHD display and a 3080, but I'm concerned about thermals, and I'm concerned about fitting 2TB SSDs into the two M.2 slots (since they are stacked). I'm actually seriously contemplating an Alienware m15 R4 and going with the 4K OLED panel. It's more 'gamery' than any Blade (15 or 17), or even most of the MSI / Asus / Gigabyte models, but I find the esthetic is actually quite attractive.

The Blade 15 Adv is slightly cheaper, and I prefer the 240 Hz / QHD display, but I like Dell's support options much better (on-site repairs vs return-to-factory for Razer).

And you're right, the Blade Pro 17 is a bit too heavy to drag around on a regular basis.


Patrick

 

MSI support is ok if you go through msi themselves and not the shop, Asus im not sure but gigabyte seems to be on the poorer side. There will always be bad experiences from any company so its a tricky point to consider. I'd rather just pick a brand that makes reliable laptops to begin with and not bother with their warranty.

While the m15 R4 is faster than the blade 15 advanced and will cooler than any razer laptop, the 60hz screen may be a big downside though. And as far as i know only razer and asus offer 4k 120hz screens with their laptops.

 

The 60 Hz refresh rate isn't a deal-breaker issue for me, as my main desktop monitor is a 4K, 60 Hz display (43 inch) already. I also picked up one of the Asus ROG Strix XG17 17 inch, 240 Hz FHD panels to travel with.

I've generally found the build quality on MSI / Asus / Acer / Gigabyte to be a step down from that of Razer / Alienware (including Dell) & Lenovo.

 

Depends on the model, from the ones I've handled personally : Blade 15/17 > Metal zephyrus, GS66 > Plastic Zephyrus, Gigabyte Aero 15, GE66, Lenovo Legion Y540/740 > Alienware M15R2, Acer nitro/Helios, Msi GL65/GP65/GS65, Asus TUF/Strix

 

How well does the Alienware perform cooling and performance? And I don’t see any blade Advanced performance and cooling users review yet, how do you know that? I only know about how bad cooling on m15 r1 and 2, m17 r3 was good due vapor chamber, but they’re still using similar intel chips which’s bad on this thin light categories. Alienware is even doesn’t have QHD screen option which a huge deal breaker for my upgrade plan, well I don’t also like to carry around the spaceship design though. As for the big 3080 performance, timespy maybe put higher tdp on top but on who play firestrike , this users play Cyberpunk on 4K Max out ray tracing both similar FPS on similar city areas 30 to 40ish, around same with my 3070 egpu FYI.
Blade pro 3080 100 Watt
https://youtu.be/UE8yDhRMi6M
GE76 3080 150 Watt.

Note: I might be wrong but the blade pro user said he’ll upload 4K max gameplay and to me it looks ray tracing ultra.

 

For starters, the M15R4's cooling is the same as the M15R3's cooling, but now the vapour chamber heatsink is used across the whole lineup so its reasonable to assume it'll perform like the M15R3.

And yes, as I have ranted so many times before, the 3000 series mobile is a scam. The 3080M just has the full 3070 die so it will match the 3070 at best.

About the design, I was talking to @GR8-Ride, not you. I don't fancy the design as well (too much plastic) but he likes it so who am I to judge.

Let's not kid ourselves the M15R/M17R series are medium sized laptops, not thin and lights as much as alienware wants to market them that way.

 

As someone who used to carry around a Dell XPS 1710 model ten years ago as my work / gaming machine (with GT 450m!), I'm not opposed to a bit of flashy design, nor does my laptop need to weigh under 2 lbs (I did carry a Thinkpad X1 Carbon for awhile...I honestly kept checking my bag to see if it was still inside!) Don't get me wrong, when it comes to the overall industrial design, I do tend to like the Blade 15 / Pro 17 series better than the AW m15/m17 style, but I also like the AW design aesthetic. Especially since I can get it in Lunar Light, which won't be the finger-print magnet that every one of my Blade laptops has been. Yes, I can get a dBrand skin (and have), but that's just another added cost and thing to maintain on the laptop.

One of the things I like about AW's cooling solution vs Razer, is that the fans exhaust straight out the back, instead of out and up at the bottom of the screen. Not that I'm terribly concerned about screen reliability, but rather simply the fact that any exhaust air has to make that turn when it hits the hinge may have an impact on how efficient the cooler can be. Maybe if you analyzed the airflow properly you would find that there is no difference, and that would be great. When the AW m15-R4 shows up, I'll be able to run some head to head benchmarks and temp tests and see how well the AW competes with the Blade Pro 17. I do agree though, the challenge lies largely with Intel, and not completely with the laptop designers.

Again, the design aesthetic is personal for each and everyone, and while I still love my Razer Blade design, there is a part of me that values some level of function over form, though form is a bit aspect for me as well. I happen to like the AW design, even though I've traditionally been a very big fan of Razer's design language. I will admit, the lack of a QHD / high-refresh panel from AW was (and still is) one of the factors that holds me back. I've gone with a 4K OLED option (FHD is not enough screen real-estate for productivity), and I actually do more work on my laptops than I game on them. Had Razer had the Blade 15 Adv with QHD in stock, I might have gone with Razer still, despite my serious concerns about their reliability and service & support. As it stands, I can return the AW within 30 days if I'm not satisfied, and I can always either just keep my Blade Pro 17, or wait for Razer to get their Blade 15 QHD models into inventory.

 

What, did I mention anything about design!? And no offense there’s no medium size gaming laptop only two to me, 2,5kg+ Tank gaming laptops and 2Kg thin light categories. Oh yes Alienware went to this category pretty late, and m15 r1 failed straight away with the cooling. They are good on tank class, m15 r2 tried to fix it by soldering the ram to keep the form factor, I didn’t see how the cooling on m15 r3 but I heard about great m17 r3 cooling system but heard also that they “cheat“ on cpu power limitation like Razer, not sure though on which model m15/17. Correct me if I’m wrong. Correctly It’s not because they want market it that way but because of the market demands of this thin light categories, in this category Razer and Gigabyte ahead, this’s because as I mentioned here anything 2,5kg is a desktop to me, laptop are only up to 2Kg class, back in 2015 there’s only two options Gigabyte or Razer later MSI comes in this in 2016.
There’s new category though, ultrabook gaming on under 1,5 like Blade stealth 13 ad followed by Asus on flow 13 and Acer Triton 300se, Asus did some new things though like amd CPUs and 2 in 1 ultrabook Gaming.

 

I would disagree with this, as I think there are truly at least three size categories of "gaming" laptops. There is the ultrabook model, which is sub 2kg, and quite honestly does not have the necessary horsepower to run any current triple-AAA games. These are great dual-purpose laptops, especially when paired with an eGPU, but they are generally not capable of playing the latest and greatest AAA games with high detail and high resolution with good frame rates. The Blade Stealth 13 is a great laptop, but there are some limitations (soldered ram, single M.2 slot, U-Series CPU). Things like the XPS 13 and the new Asus ROG Flow X13, which is a pretty interesting idea. Then you have the "mid-size" gaming category, which I would put as the 2-3 kg range. Not quite "thin and light", but also not true desktop replacement type. The Blade 15 / Pro 17 / AW m15/m17 would fall into this category, along with a lot of other mid-sized but still very portable laptops (MSI GE76, Aorus 17G, etc). These are generally 25mm / 1 inch in thickness or less, and as I said, below 3 kg. I personally think this "mid-sized" category is the sweet spot for a blend of performance and portability; larger screens, better cooling, but still very portable, and can potentially have decent enough battery life to make the laptop be a good, dual-purpose unit (work & pleasure). I'm sure you might think 2.5 kg is too heavy, but others make say 3 kg is the cut-off....again, personal preference on that. My Blade Pro 17 weighs in at 2.86 kg (just weighed it tonight on a digital scale), and I've never found it to be an excessive burden to travel with.

And finally, the desktop replacement units, or those "laptops" that are 3kg and beyond, and often well over 25mm / 1 inch in thickness, and generally have massive power bricks to go with them. You don't really travel with these so much as lug them around, and battery life is often emergency use only, and not a practical element of their design. So technically still a laptop, but not a practical one. AW Area-51m, some of the Acer Predator series, MSI GT76, etc.

To a certain extent it's splitting hairs, but I would say there are viable target markets for each of the three size categories: road-warriors and casual gamers for the ultrabook crowd (League of Legends and similar gaming category, even some CS:GO / Fortnite ). And then the "thin and light" crowd or mid-sized crowd, which is the Blade 15 / AW m15 / MSI GE76 / MSI Stealth 15m etc) for the folks who still may travel, but want something more capable than an ultrabook, and want to play AAA titles with good framerates and resolution / settings. I'd say this market is pretty strong as well, as there are plenty of folks around like me who want good performance from a subtle (relatively) and fairly portable machine.

If anything, the 3 kg and up DTR is probably dying off, which is likely why AW hasn't updated the Area-51m lately, nor have Acer or MSI come out with new DTR models like the Predator 21x or GT76 Titan. Those units are really not much more portable than a SFF desktop, still have virtually no battery life (again, not THAT different from an SFF PC), and are generally horrendously over-priced when compared to a well built SFF PC. If LAN parties were still a thing, I'm sure I could build a cost-effective SFF PC with an RTX 30 series (if you can find one), AMD CPU and potentially even H2O cooling that would run circles around any DTR laptop for a fraction of the cost. If I actually had any use for one, I'd be tempted to build one for myself....

 

here

Thin and lights are usually 2.3kg and below (maximally 2.4kg) like the blade 15, zephyrus S/G15. Then you have thin and heavier 17 inchers that go up to 2.7kg like the zephyrus S17, blade 17 Pro 2020. The only true thin and light 17 inch is the GS75 at 2.3kg and on the other side of the spectrum the thin and heavy Blade Pro 17 2021 at 3kg.

Then you have light but not thin laptops like the Acer nitro 5, Asus Tuf and MSI GL series at around 2kg-2.3kg but these are light because they have worse build quality and are made of plastic

Medium sized laptops start at 2.5kg like the Strix 15, GE66, AW M15. 17 inch medium sized ones start at 2.7kg like the Strix 17, AW M17and GE76.

The large desktop replacement ones are the Asus GX703, Alienware A51m and GT76 which clock in at 4kg+

As as short summary of the AW lineup, the R1 and R2 have really bad cooling. The R3 fixed that on the higher end, and the R4 fixed that on the whole lineup. I have no idea on the QC on the heatsinks on the R3 and R4 but it was terrible on the R1 and R2.

Those are just thin and light 13 inch laptops which serve a very niche category of buyers.

If your leaving your graphics horsepower at home you're better off getting a desktop and an actual ultrabook.

Between the small screen, poor keyboard and high price it doesn't fit the bill for most people.

 

As I said it’s my personal opinion. Gaming “laptops“ are maxed at 2,5kg because over of that range I can’t put it on my lap nor easy moving around on the house. Due COVID I rarely even bringing blade 15 outside and even moving its around blade stealth is way to do simply with one hand. Yes sure outcomes with performance limitation but yes more performance need more room means heavier, so again it depends to end user.

I wouldn’t agree, there’s users also who doesn’t need multiple devices, if I didn’t buy blade 15 I’d be happy owning only stealth, at home with core help it’ll boost the performance and depends the gpu you’ll think meh performance upgrade to 3000 series laptop, in some cases it’ll be close to its desktop counterpart without having multiple device which’s main ideas from Egpu, thanks to thunderbolt technology. I never need a desktop with this, for small keyboard and screen I don’t get it since who use internal at home, I use external at home for better any experiences, but for “lap“ use case actually blade stealth keyboard and laptop size wise is far better than blade 14/15 I think also to 14/15 inch laptops overall. Again it’s only my personal preference.

 

Back to blade Pro theme, according notebookcheck which’s user favorite place to check I believe, honestly I don’t really like them They mentioned performance actually similar or better (a lot) on some games despite having lower gpu wattage than Asus ROG Duo 3080, yes i saw some guys flashed with higher tdp bios but it’s other story. Take a look at the comment QA.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer...w-The-GeForce-RTX-30-Difference.519563.0.html

 

Yeah I checked and compared the two, the Blade Pro is faster across the board in the games section. I suspect it has to do with the ryzen processor getting bottlenecked more than intel cpus by the slow laptop ram.

 

Or because it doesn't have a mux switch? I think that user flashed the main vbios and ran 3dmark with an external screen to avoid performance loss, whereas NBC ran game benchmarks with internal screen.

I really hope any razer blade 3080 user can try to flash vbios with higher wattage limits and run some tests again, since gpu temp seems well controlled with 100w limit.

 

I ruled that out because the blade pro doesn't have a mux switch either.

And i don't think the blade can be flashed since it will be labelled as a Max-q card internally so Max-p vbioses won't work.

 

It has better one, advanced optimus that doesn’t need rebooting the system compared mux, this option is on synapse, using only nvidia gpu. Later video on same person on OP shows mux switch but accurately I believe advanced optimus this exist also on 2020 blade pro 17.

And about the bios, if it matches you can cross flash it. I didn’t do that on my 1070maxq blade 15 but msi user did that on gs65 I believe he even flashed desktop 1070.

 

Oh what there's a MUX option now?!

 

Here’s from 2020 model.

 

The 2020 Blade Advanced 15 and Pro 17 used a MUX.

 

I've a 17 Pro here with no MUX, probably the worst thing about it.